Halloween: We Survived

Before I post the obligatory pumpkin and costume pictures I'm wondering... National Blog Posting Month - does anyone care this year? By "anyone" I don't mean the internet at large, I mean the readers of this space. My posting has been so sporadic this fall that I fear many readers have fallen off. I guess I still like the challenge of posting every day and there is usually lots to write about in November, but I'm not sure how motivated I am if only three people are reading (Hi Dad!). If you would read posts every day for a month this might be a good time to leave a comment and let me know - er, or I might have to let this one slide...

So, anyway, here are the pumpkin carving pictures. Which reminds me that I need to find time to roast those seeds! This first picture is included primarily to display Harper's incredible bed head:


Michael was fairly adamant about not touching any of the pumpkin innards, but he loved to look inside:


Harper, on the other hand, dug right in a separated a lot of the seeds. That is, she separated seeds when she wasn't busy playing in the goop.


This was an incredibly lazy year for me in the costume department. Meaning we just went to the costume store one Friday night and let the kids make a choice. (Side note: part of what I don't like about Halloween is the level of sexy in the girls' costumes, even the ones for little girls!)

Poor Harper was very excited about her Toy Story costume, but had a terrible time keeping the hat on her (large) noggin. Michael was a "dragonsaurus" which I guess is a dragon or dinosaur, depending on the mood of your two-year-old or the interpretation of the people handing out candy.


Are there pictures of Jessie posing like this? Because Harper did the exact same thing every time I tried to take a solo picture of her.


This was Michael's first year for actual trick-or-treating and he was a champ. When we noticed it we took unsafe (nutty) candy out of Harper's bucket, but Michael had a fit if we tried to touch his. At each house he'd turn around, hold up what he'd been given, and shout, "Yook!" to us. So precious, it never got old.

By the end of the night it was an hour past his bedtime and he was carrying a bucket way too heavy for him - he was the dragon stumbling along as if he'd just spent a few hours at the pub. He didn't actually give up until about a block from the car when he handed over his bucket and reached out for one of us to carry him.


So yes, we survived Halloween. We even survived Harper's school party where a well-meaning but misguided parent (grandparent?) tried to hand out mini Snickers bars to the kids. (I, uh, intervened, explaining the room was nut free, but had a little moment of panic for sure.)

Aaaand we can close the books on Halloween 2010. Thank goodness!